GENEVA: Two days after Russia finished fourth in the Olympic medal table, its Paralympic team was barred from the next big games in Rio de Janeiro as punishment for a state-backed doping programme.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport yesterday upheld a decision by the International Paralympic Committee to exclude Russia.
The 267 entries which Russian Paralympic athletes earned in 18 sports for the Sept. 7-18 games in Rio will now be allocated to other nations not judged responsible for orchestrated cheating.
Russia won 36 gold medals at the 2012 Paralympics, second most in London, and was a runaway table-topping leader at its home 2014 Winter Paralympics.
Still, the Sochi Winter Games and Winter Paralympics are now notorious for results corrupted by state-funded agencies plotting to swap tainted doping samples from Russian athletes for clean ones at official testing laboratories.
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